pro tour ixalan top 8

Pro Tour Ixalan

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Pro Tour Ixalan was the first Pro Tour of the 2017–18 season . It took place on 3–5 November 2017 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States. The event was won by former World Champion Seth Manfield , whose Sultai Energy deck won him the trophy in the final match against Canada's Pascal Maynard .

The event also featured the induction ceremony of two new Hall of Famers : Josh Utter-Leyton and Martin Jůza .

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Format [ | ]

Pro Tour Ixalan marked the first time since the 2011 World Championships that the event took place not 1–2 weeks after the release of a new set; instead, Ixalan had been available for purchase for five weeks as Pro Tour Ixalan took place. As a result, the Standard and Booster draft formats had both been well explored prior to the event, with William Jensen having won the 2017 World Championship with Temur Energy four weeks prior, and five Ixalan Limited Grand Prix events had taken place already.

Day one [ | ]

An Ixalan Booster draft kicked the event off, with the featured players being former Player of the Year Brad Nelson and Yuki Matsumoto, who was coming into the event with a lifetime Booster draft win record of 76%. Nelson drafted a White-Black Vampires deck that the commentators thought ended up fine, especially considering the weak start to the draft; in the first pack, Nelson didn't get many good cards. Matsumoto drafted a Blue-Black Pirates deck favored by the commentators. In the end, Nelson finished 1–2 in the draft, while Matsumoto won the pod, going 3–0. Other famous players to also post a perfect 3–0 start to the Pro Tour included Luis Scott-Vargas , back from an absence from the professional scene; Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa , winner of the previous Pro Tour; Gabriel Nassif ; Owen Turtenwald ; Paul Rietzl ; and both newly minted Hall of Famers , Martin Jůza and Josh Utter-Leyton .

Five rounds of Standard followed. The biggest decks by far were Ramunap Red, at 19.6% of the metagame, and two flavors of Energy decks: Temur at 23.6% of the field, and Four-Color at 19.6%. Other decks to make appearances included various God-Pharaoh's Gift decks, Mardu Vehicles, Black-Red Aggro, and Blue-Black Control. Wilson Hunter started 7–1 with Mono-White Vampires; Guillaume Matignon did the same with Jeskai Approach of the Second Sun . However, the two 8–0 players, Piotr Glogowski and Wing Chun Yam , were playing known quantities, fielding Four-Color Energy and Ramunap Red, respectively.

The top eight players after day one:

In the Team Series , the runaway leader after day one was team ChannelFireball . With three players at 7–1 ( Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa , Ben Stark , and Mike Sigrist ), two players at 6–2 ( Martin Jůza and Josh Utter-Leyton ), and one player at 5–3 ( Luis Scott-Vargas ), ChannelFireball scored fully 24 match points better than their closest competitor, team Genesis.

Day two [ | ]

The second day of competition, similar to the first, featured three rounds of Ixalan Booster draft followed by five rounds of Standard . The featured drafters were Wing Chun Yam , tied for first place after day one, and reigning Player of the Year Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa . Both players drafted Red-Green Dinosaurs, with the commentators suggesting that Damo da Rosa got the better deck of the two; his final product included among other cards Regisaur Alpha , Ripjaw Raptor , and Charging Monstrosaur . In the end, both players went 2–1 in the draft, with Yam defeating Damo da Rosa in round 10. The player to post the 3–0 on pod 1 was former World Champion Guillaume Matignon , who along with Yam and pod 2 winner Mike Sigrist , entered the final rounds of Standard tied for first, sporting 10–1 records.

Entering the Standard rounds, Mike Sigrist took two matches and advanced to the pivotal 36 points well ahead of schedule, and made his third Top 8 on three draws. Seth Manfield was next to join after a victory over Guillaume Matignon , who would later also be in the Top 8 after a victory over Bryan Hohns. Pascal Maynard's draw in round 6 gave him the edge after beating Owen Turtenwald , who later loses his clean win-and-in match against Kentaro Yamamoto . Day 1 leader Piotr Glogowski would ID with Seth Manfield, and John Rolf would ID also with Matignon, clearing six of the eight spots before play. The last two spots to be decided were Christian Hauck prevailing over Francesco Giorgio, and newcomer Samuel Ihlenfeldt claimed the lone 12-4 spot after defeating veteran Reid Duke and tiebreaker favourite Yam Wing Chun lost to Sergio Rozalen.

Top 8 [ | ]

Trivia [ | ].

• Pro Tour Ixalan was the first Pro Tour since Pro Tour New York 1998 not attended by Raphaël Lévy , who ended his streak of 91 consecutive Pro Tours played due to the birth of his first child.
• The event also saw the return of Luis Scott-Vargas to competitive play; after posting three Pro Tour top eights in 2015–16 , Scott-Vargas had taken the 2016–17 Pro Tour Season off to do coverage . His replacement on the Pro Tour coverage team was Pro Tour champion Simon Goertzen.
• Five players went undefeated in Booster Draft: Guillaume Matignon , Owen Turtenwald , Yuki Mastumoto, Bryan Hohns, and Elias Watsfeldt.
• Four players posted a 9–1 record in Standard: Ben Stark (4C Energy), Daniel Fournier, Yoshihiko Ikawa (both Ramunap Red) and Christian Hauck. Only Hauck was able to Top 8; however, John Rolf and Piotr Glogowski posted 8–1–1 records, with the draw being intentional.

External links [ | ]

• Pro Tour Ixalan coverage
• Pro Tour Ixalan invitation list
• 1 Outlaws of Thunder Junction/Commander decks
• 2 Outlaws of Thunder Junction

Standard Decks to Watch at Pro Tour Ixalan

The Pro Tour is upon us, and Adam has the latest Standard technology ready for you in an ever-changing metagame. As the pros converge to battle, will these decks shaking up Magic Online break through?

By Adam Yurchick | @AdamYurchick | Published 2/7/2023 | 9 min read

Pro Tour Ixalan is this weekend, and all eyes will be on the pros as they unleash their best Standard decks and tech on the opposition. Players have been working on figuring out this post-rotation format for weeks now, but the metagame will come to a head at the PT. We'll see if anything can unseat Temur and Ramunap Red from the top of the metagame, and it's time for rogue decks to prove themselves as competitive or be forgotten. I've been paying close attention to the trends on Magic Online to get an idea of what the metagame might look like this weekend, and I've found some very promising strategies that could have their big break at the Pro Tour.

White-Blue God-Pharaoh's Gift

God-Pharaoh's Gift decks survived rotation and gained great new tools, and were expected to be a player in the new metagame. While the strategy did put up some finishes in the early days of the format, the deck hasn't caught on widely. It is now beginning to prove itself as a top-tier competitive strategy online, with results including a finals and top four finish in the online Pro Tour Qualifier last weekend.

The most popular version recently has been a white-blue build centered around using Refurbish to reanimate a God-Pharaoh's Gift. The graveyard plan gained some excellent cards in Ixalan to support the graveyard plan, with Chart the Course acting as a Tormenting Voice with upside, and its raid-like ability is easy to enable in a deck full of creatures. Search of Azcanta is an effective graveyard enabler, and its ability to flip into Azcanta, the Sunken Ruin is perfect for digging for its key spells. Another major gain for the deck is Opt, which doesn't fill the graveyard but helps make the deck more consistent throughout the game.

The Esper version of God-Pharaoh's Gift is nearly entirely blue-black, with Concealed Courtyard included to help cast any Angel of Invention stuck in hand. Rather than reanimate God-Pharaoh's Gift, this version uses Gate to the Afterlife to search for it and put it into play at a discount. Kitesail Freebooter and Hostage Taker give this version some excellent disruptive elements, and it's perfectly capable of winning a fair game without relying on its namesake artifact. One of the biggest benefits of black is of course The Scarab God, which is one of the very best creatures in Standard, and works very well as a backup to God-Pharaoh's Gift as an alternative way to Eternalize creatures.

White-Blue Vizier of the Anointed Tokens

A novel approach to the Anointed Procession tokens strategy is to add Vizier of the Anointed, which gives the deck a card draw engine to support the many eternalize creatures it plays. This also opens up a small toolbox of creatures to search for, with Adorned Pouncer being a great threat and Sunscourge Champion working very well against Red. Vizier of the Anointed searching for a creature is card advantage in itself, so it's easy to see how it adds to the deck's ability to grind.

Blue-Red Energy-Improvise Aggro

Craig Wescoe found the intersection between energy and improvise with this awesome deck. It takes advantage of the ability of Whirler Virtuoso to convert energy into Thopter Tokens, which in turn fuels improvise with free artifacts. Aether Chaser and Aether Swooper support the plan with their ability to efficiently convert energy into tokens, and along with Whirler Virtuoso can wield Inventor's Goggles. The payoffs for Improvise are Thopter Maverick, which is a very powerful card when cast for as low as two mana, and Freejam Regent as a big finisher.

Mono-Black Aggro

Mono-Black Aggro briefly appeared after rotation, but it stayed off the map until very recently. Built in the same vein as the red aggro decks, it has a low curve and aggressive tendencies. It's actually more aggressive than Ramunap Red, with access to up to 12 one-drop threats. It also has more card advantage, with Scrapheap Scrounger adding the ability to grind and Ruin Raider providing fresh cards. This version goes further by adding Dunes of the Dead to gain extra value when sacrificed by Ifnir Deadlands, which is similar to how Red adds value to its lands with Sunscorched Desert.

Black-Red Aggro

Another approach to Mono-Black Aggro is to splash into red, and it has been doing well online, including a Top 8 in the MTGO PTQ. Bomat Courier is a great addition because it doesn't require red mana on turn one to function, and can accumulate cards before being sacrificed after drawing a red source later in the game. Hazoret, the Fervent is the best aggressive card in Standard and the main reason to be red, while Lightning Strike is the best aggressive spell and more flexible than Walk the Plank because it can damage the opponent.

Legion's Landing Mardu

The biggest rogue success story of the past few weeks has been the success of Mardu, which has seen massive growth and is rivaling the top decks in the metagame. It was widely claimed to be extinct after rotation, but it has reinvented itself. It owes some of its success to making use of new Ixalan cards, but this list is the first I've seen to use Legion's Landing, which gives the deck incredible ability to grind in the late game when it transforms into Adanto, the First Fort.

I'm also a big fan of the deck using Harsh Mentor and Rampaging Ferocidon in the sideboard as a package of hoser creatures to fight Temur and Tokens, just like Ramunap Red does.

Bant Approach

Approach of the Second Sun Control was another strategy that survived rotation, and it even looked to improve with new cards like Opt and Search for Azcanta. The deck definitely made an impact, but it is struggling to maintain its hold on the metagame as players have fought back with additional discard and countermagic in their aggressive decks or by wielding black control decks that have great matchups against the white-blue deck. To survive, some players have begun to dip into green, which speeds up the deck with mana acceleration including Gift of Paradise and even Hour of Promise, which gives the deck an additional threat.

This particular build goes far deeper into green by including three Sandwurm Convergence to ramp into. It's a huge payoff, and even more important to this deck than even Approach of the Second Sun, which it only plays two of. A steady stream of 5/5 tokens will be difficult for anyone to beat, so it gives this deck a late game finisher that can't really be stopped. Another great benefit of going deep into green is that it opens up the sideboard to Carnage Tyrant, which is the perfect way to fight back against other control decks that will be prepared for expensive sorceries but will be nearly helpless against an uncounterable hexproof threat.

Electrostatic Pummeler Decks

Electrostatic Pummeler is the most broken energy card in Standard since Aetherworks Marvel is banned, and while decks built around it haven't proven themselves as consistent top-tier contenders, it's starting to see a lot more success online. The most popular versions now play blue, and Cartouche of Knowledge has caught on as technology for the archetype and seems to be one of the biggest reasons for its sudden upsurge. It's great on Electrostatic Pummeler to push it past blockers, but it's also quite good on the other energy creatures. It gets Longtusk Cub past blockers to generate energy, and it's amazing on Bristling Hydra to give the deck a flying hexproof threat reminiscent of the Jade Guardian-One with the Wind combo that dominates many Ixalan limited games.

A really cool adaptation to the Blue-Green Pummeler deck is to splash into black rather than red to gain access to Glint-Sleeve Siphoner, which the deck supports with all of its energy production, and in turn provides the deck with a stream of cards. This card advantage is perfect for a combo-like deck that needs to dig for its key cards like Electrostatic Pummeler, and it helps bring the power level up. It's also a card that the opponent must respect and destroy, so it draws out removal and paves the way for Electrostatic Pummeler.

Black also gives the sideboard Duress, which is perfect for protecting Electrostatic Pummeler. Cartouche of Ambition works very well against Red, and The Scarab God is sure to catch control opponents off guard.

Four-Color Energy Variants

If the format has a best deck, it's Temur, which uses the best cards and the best mechanic and has been at the forefront of the metagame for months. The deck is still evolving, and one direction is to stretch deeper into black beyond The Scarab God to gain a bigger edge against the mirror and other opponents. By cutting Longtusk Cub, which is sided out in the mirror, the deck can gain a better game-one matchup against the mirror. Glint-Sleeve Siphoner is a potent energy card that is easily enabled in this deck and will provide a stream of cards. Vraska, the Relic Seeker is both threat and answer, and it's very difficult for Temur – or really any opponent – to beat, so adding it to the deck pushes the power to a new level.

Jaberwocki's list goes even deeper into black for an even bigger advantage in the mirror, with Gonti, Lord of Luxury giving the deck a source of card advantage that provides a great solution to Bristling Hydra and even Carnage Tyrant. Vraska's Contempt gives the deck a clean answer to The Scarab God, and it helps shore up the Red matchup as an answer to Hazoret, the Fervent.

A nice advantage of going heavily into black is the addition of Duress to the sideboard, which combines with Negate to give the deck an extremely efficient and powerful disruption package that will wreck any control opponent.

Ramunap Red is still the bogeyman of the format, and Temur Energy is still a very solid option that is likely to be the most-played deck in the room at the Pro Tour, so the question is what decks fill in the rest of the metagame. I expect control of all sorts to be popular, but it will have to be prepared for Carnage Tyrant, which has quickly risen to prevalence in response to the emergence of control. I expect the biggest winners at the Pro Tour to be the various flavors of aggressive decks that provide an alternative option to Ramunap Red, like the Mono-Black and Black-Red Aggro decks I shared today, along with Mardu and the Electrostatic Pummeler decks. I'll also have my eyes open for any God-Pharaoh's Gift decks, which combines a cast of some of the best creatures in the format with one of the most powerful cards in the format. It could break out if players take notice of its success online last weekend and realize how good it really is. Finally, it's going to be fun to see how Temur players tune their decks, and if any crazy builds with splashes end up on top and become the norm going forward, or if stock Temur remains the best.

Enjoy the Pro Tour!

- Adam Yurchick

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The Magic Minute

Pro tour rivals of ixalan top 8 recap.

David McCoy

February 4, 2018

3 min to read

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After a shaky final round on Saturday, Luis Salvatto and his Lantern Control deck stabilized in the Top 8 on Sunday to win Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan.

Modern is one of the most popular competitive formats in Magic and the first Modern Pro Tour in two years didn’t disappoint. Though some of the quarterfinal games were fast and one-sided, the semifinal between Pascal Vieren and Gerry Thompson was a match for the ages.

Vieren and his UR Pyromancer deck easily outclassed Thompson’s Mardu Pyromancer deck in the first two games of their semifinal match. Thompson fought valiantly but his grindy deck just didn’t match up well against Vieron’s Blue card draw and card selection. After sideboarding, Thompson managed to win a quick Game 3, forcing Vieren into Games 4 and 5, in which Thompson outmaneuvered Vieren at multiple points, forcing through important threats and winning the match.

But Thompson was in for a rough ride in the finals against Luis Salvatto and his Lantern Control deck. Despite two maindeck copies of artifact removal, the Mardu Pyromancer deck just couldn’t effectively attack Lantern’s redundant lock pieces. Salvatto quickly locked Thompson out of Games 1 and 2 without much resistance. His deck was a littler slower in the face of some sideboarded interaction from Thompson in Game 3, but it wasn’t enough, as Salvatto locked Thompson out once again to win Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan.

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Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan: By the Numbers

Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan is in the books, and the event was a great display of why many players love the Modern format. While some pros were concerned that they would solve the format before heading into the event, this concern seems to be unfounded, based on the incredible diversity of the decks that showed up and performed well at the Pro Tour. Not only did we end up with seven different decks in the Top 8, but no single deck made up more than 9.3% of the metagame, which means that, at least in terms of diversity, Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan looked much like the Modern format looked heading into the event. 

While diversity is one of the biggest strengths of Modern, it's also one of our biggest challenges today. With Standard Pro Tours, there are usually a handful of heavily played decks, which gives us a pretty large sample size for breaking down the numbers. Since "heavily played" at Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan means 7% of the field rather than 30% of the field, we need to take the data from the Pro Tour with a grain of salt. Even discounting the split-format problem, which naturally makes the data much less reliable, the small sample sizes mean that our discussion today will be more fun (and hopefully enlightening) than scientific.

With this in mind, our plan for today is pretty simple: first, we'll break down the numbers on the most heavily played decks at Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan;  then, we'll discuss some of the lesser played decks before following this up with some of the most exciting under-the-radar decks and finally wrapping things up with the most played cards from Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan . We've got a lot of ground to cover, so let's get to it!

Baseline Numbers

To judge the performance of specific decks, we need a baseline for the format. The following table shows how the entire field performed at Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan . These baseline numbers allow us to see how individual decks performed at various data points. If a deck posts numbers above the baseline, it did better than average, while numbers below the baseline mean the deck performed worse than expected.

Nine Most Played Decks (5%+ of the Day 1 Meta)

It's hard to consider Five-Color Humans anything but a winner at Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan . While none of its numbers are off the charts (with the 18+% being the most notable, coming in just over 10% above expected), every single number is good. Plus, Five-Color Humans was the only deck to put two players into the Top 8, which means it will likely be a winner not just by the numbers but in terms of perspective as well, with extra camera time during the Top 8. 

Probably the most interesting aspect of Five-Color Humans is just how quickly the deck went from the very fringes of Modern to near the top table of a Pro Tour, with the printing of Kitesail Freebooter in Ixalan being the big push forward the deck needed. After the performance at Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan , it seems that the deck is here to stay and looks to be the default Aether Vial deck in the format, after both Death & Taxes and Merfolk basically forgot to show up for the Pro Tour. 

As far as innovations on the Pro Tour stage, the two big ones were Collected Company —which showed up in some of the lists but might end up forgotten, considering that both of the decks to make the Top 8 were traditional Aether Vial builds—and Dire Fleet Daredevil in the sideboard, which seems likely to stick around to steal opponents' spells. 

While Affinity was fine at Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan , the big picture is somewhat disappointing. After posting a very slightly above average conversion rate, Affinity posted below-average numbers at every other spot on the curve while also missing out on the Top 8, making the overall performance of the deck relatively mediocre. While these numbers wouldn't scare me away from picking up Affinity in Modern—the deck is always near the top of the format, despite a lot of hate in sideboards—it also wouldn't push me toward playing the deck.

As far as Pro Tour innovations, there isn't really much to discuss. While some builds apparently played Bitterblossom in the sideboard—one of the advantages of having access to any color of mana—all of the top-performing builds of Affinity look pretty much like how Affinity always looks.

The numbers on Burn look almost exactly like Affinity's: slightly above average conversion rate, slightly below average by most other metrics, with no high-end finishes to boost the archetype's profile. As such, everything I said about Affinity remains true here: Burn has been around Modern for forever and will likely continue to be a major part of the format, but its performance at Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan isn't a reason to pick up the deck. 

As for innovations, the two big takeaways are that nearly all of the best-performing builds of Burn were playing between one and two copies of Grim Lavamancer in the main deck (while the builds with lesser finishes often weren't playing any at all) and, meanwhile, that only one of the nine Burn players was running Atarka's Command , even though all but one were splashing green for Destructive Revelry in the sideboard.

Heading into the event, Tron was one of the popular picks to break out, potentially to the extent where Wizards would take action and ban the deck, but Tron posted a fairly uneven performance at Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan . Tron posted a solid conversion rate and an above-average percentage of players posting a winning record but a fairly weak rate of pushing players over the hump and getting at least seven wins in constructed (of the 12 players to get a least 18 points, eight of them got exactly 18 points, the equivalent of going 6-4). Plus, Tron missed out on the Top 8 completely, so it was out of the public eye and conversation all day Sunday. While I'm starting to sound like a broken record, the end result is another performance that isn't especially good or bad, which is apparently the theme of Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan : a million playable decks but no deck that is anywhere near dominant. 

Maybe the most interesting aspect of Tron at Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan is what version showed up. While Wizards lumped all the builds together in the metagame breakdowns—so it's impossible to know exactly which build performed best—the general breakdown is interesting. All of the best-performing builds of Tron were Mono-Green, even though only four of the 12 Tron players who did well enough to get their list published were on the Mono-Green build of the deck. Meanwhile, GB Tron was the most popular build, taking up seven of the 12 slots. Finally, we had a single GR Tron player get six wins at Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan . What happens moving forward is anyone's guess. While it's likely that GR Tron will continue to come in a distant third place in the Tron rankings, whether players go with the most popular build GB build or the less popular but better performing Mono-Green build remains to be seen.

While only the fifth-most-played deck on Day 1, Grixis Death's Shadow was one of the best-performing decks at Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan , posting numbers comparable to Five-Color Humans but without sneaking into the Top 8 to boost its profile. Not only did Grixis Death's Shadow do a good job of putting players into Day 2 and giving its pilots winning records, but it posted high-end finishes, coming in nearly 10% above expected, in terms of the 21+ point percentage. As such, it wouldn't be a surprise to see players stick with the deck, especially those who dig behind the Top 8 finishes and into the meat of the numbers.

On the other hand, Grixis Death's Shadow has one huge problem: it wasn't even the best Death's Shadow deck at Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan . While Traverse Shadow started with too few players to qualify for a full breakdown, a massive 62% of the 13 players who started off with the deck on Day 1 ended up finishing with a winning record, essentially doubling up the expected 30.8%—this after converting 11 of 13 from Day 1 to Day 2.

This leaves us with a weird scenario as far as Death's Shadow is concerned. Grixis Death's Shadow was good and heavily played, while Traverse Shadow was great but not that heavily played. Moving forward, the Traverse the Ulvenwald build might very well be the best choice, but we'll see if that's enough to overcome the fact that Grixis Death's Shadow has been the default build for quite a while now.

Eldrazi Tron was one of the best of the 10 most played decks at converting players from Day 1 to Day 2 but followed up the sterling Day 1 performance by posting average to below-average Day 2 numbers. This puts it in our huge group of good but not especially great decks at Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan . I'm not sure how many more ways I can say it, so I'll keep it short: Eldrazi Tron is a fine choice, as are approximately 30 decks in Modern, but it isn't significantly better or worse than most of the other options.

Jeskai Control's story is a tale of two days. After Day 1, the archetype was looking like a winner, with a strong (more than 10% above expected) conversion rate, making it seem as if control might be on the rise in Modern. However, Jeskai Control followed this up with a horrible second day, coming in below expectations at every point on the curve and far below average for giving players seven or more wins in constructed. 

It's hard to parse out what happened with Jeskai Control at the event thanks to the split format. While it's possible that the deck was worse against the Day 2 meta than it was against the Day 1 meta, it's also possible that Jeskai Control pilots performed well enough in draft to make it into Day 2, while the deck actually wasn't that strong in constructed. Because of this, it's hard to really make any definite statements about the deck. Do you believe the strong conversion numbers or the poor finish numbers? That's the question for Jeskai Control moving forward.

You know Storm is in trouble when Finkel decides to play Tron, and the numbers back this up. Heading into Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan , there was some worry that Storm would be the breakout deck, but in the end, the deck was horrible at the event. While at least there was some gray area with a deck like Jeskai Control, with numbers being mixed between Days 1 and 2, Storm was bad by every metric, posting the worst conversion rate of the 10 most played decks at Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan  and then backing this up by lacking finishes on Day 2. In short, out of the nine decks that started Day 1 with at least 5% of the meta, Storm was—by far—the worst deck at Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan . The good news (or bad news, depending on your feelings about Storm) is that this performance makes it significantly less likely that Wizards will decide to ban a Storm card next week. 

UW Control at Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan was basically just a worse version of Jeskai Control, which is especially problematic, since Jeskai Control wasn't especially good. Out of the 10 most played decks at the event, eight posted positive conversion rates from Day 1 to Day 2, and UW Control was one of the two (alongside Storm) that performed below expectations, which makes it unsurprising that it performed poorly in terms of posting winning finishes as well. While the Day 1 numbers gave Modern control players hope, in the end, the conventional wisdom that control is a tough sell in Modern seems to have held true at Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan . While the very nature of Modern means that few decks are unplayable, most of the heavily played archetypes performed average to good, but control broke the mold by performing average to poorly, which probably means it's better to look elsewhere moving forward. 

Notes on Other Decks

There are so many decks in Modern that it's basically impossible to talk about everything (by my count, a massive 30 decks posted a winning record at the event). However, here are a few quick thoughts on some of the decks that fell just outside of our most played list, coming in at less than 5% of the Day 1 metagame.

• Jund and Abzan were horrible overall, posting very below average conversion rates, although Reid Duke managed to break the mold and Top 8 with Abzan, which means the weekend wasn't a complete loss for the archetypes.
• Mardu Pyromancer was similar to Jund and Abzan, posting bad numbers overall but managing to make the Top 8 in the hands of Gerry Thompson.
• Maybe the biggest surprise of the weekend is that combo in general was pretty poor at Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan,  with Dredge, Storm, and Counters Company (the three most played combo decks) all performing far below average in terms of converting Day 1 to Day 2 as well as in posting strong finishes on Day 2.
• RB Hollow One was one of the best decks at Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan . While it fell short in the Top 8, 100% of its players made it into Day 2, with 66.7% posting a winning record. Expect to see more of the deck moving forward.
• Another great underplayed deck was Madcap Moon, which finished the tournament with four of its five players posting winning records and getting their decklists published on the Mothership.

So, where does all of this leave us in terms of Modern moving forward? I honestly have no idea. The biggest takeaway from Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan is that Modern is basically exactly what we thought it was heading into the event: a format with a ton of viable decks but without any single deck that can claim the title of best in the format. As such, the best technique for Modern still seems to be to pick a deck that you enjoy playing and practice that deck a ton, and you will be able to have success with it. Modern isn't like Standard, where you need to be playing one of a small number of decks to have a legitimate chance to win a tournament—a massive 30 decks posted a winning record at Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan —so play what you enjoy, and learn to play it well.

Six Spiciest Under-the-Radar Decks

UR Kiln Fiend is basically the less all-in Pro Tour version of the Blistering Rage deck we played for Budget Magic a long time ago. If you have a Monastery Swiftspear on Turn 1 or a Kiln Fiend on Turn 2, it's pretty easy to untap and win the next turn by casting a bunch of free pump spells like Manamorphose and Mutagenic Growth before finishing things off with Temur Battle Rage . If you like being aggressive and slinging spells, UR Kiln Fiend looks like a fun and solid option.

We did an Instant Deck Tech on a very similar deck a while ago , so it's exciting to see WB Zombies (or Zombie Copter) show up on the Pro Tour stage. While the deck isn't especially fast or broken, it's really difficult to deal with, since all of the threats return to the battlefield from the graveyard, which makes them work well with Smuggler's Copter and Liliana of the Veil , since we can discard our Bloodghast s, Gravecrawler s, and Dread Wanderer s and then return them to the battlefield from our graveyard to generate card advantage and keep the beatdown going!

Even thought RB Hollow One made the Top 8 and was one of the best decks by the numbers (albeit with a small sample size), it still qualifies as one of the spiciest decks from Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan . While the deck is amazingly high variance, relying on cards like Goblin Lore and Burning Inquiry , which allow you to draw a ton of cards but then force you to discard at random, the payoff is worth the risk, with Turn 1  Hollow One s along with boards full of Gurmag Angler s and Bloodghast in Turn 2. If you liked the Mono-Red Hollow One deck from Budget Magic , you'll love this fully powered Pro Tour version!

I almost didn't include Ironworks Combo, which is basically the newest version of the notoriously annoying Eggs deck, because the deck is amazingly unfun to play against, but spicy is spicy. The basic idea of Ironworks Combo is that you play a bunch of random artifacts that draw you cards when they enter the battlefield or die (or in some cases, both) and then eventually turn these artifacts into mana with Krark-Clan Ironworks . Scrap Trawler lets you go pseudo-infinite by getting artifacts back from your graveyard, and then eventually you end the game by hard-casting an Emrakul, the Aeons Torn , sometimes as early as Turn 3!

While Bant Knightfall might qualify as spicy regardless, since it's a fairly under-the-radar combo, the main reason the build is worth mentioning is because it reaches into the Commander card pool for Lightning Greaves as a way to speed up the combo. If you aren't familiar with Bant Knightfall, if you can get a Retreat to Coralhelm on the battlefield with a non-summoning sick Knight of the Reliquary , you win the game by getting all of the lands out of your deck, making Knight of the Reliquary huge, then dumping your hand with pseudo-infinite mana and eventually attacking with the Knight. Adding Lightning Greaves to the deck means you don't have to survive a turn with your Knight of the Reliquary sitting on the battlefield before comboing off, and considering this build was the only Bant Knightfall list to perform well enough to be published on the Mothership, it seems like the plan might have worked.

One of the decks people asked about a lot on Twitter this weekend was Death & Taxes, and while Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan overall wasn't good for the archetype, one interesting build did manage to post a finish: Eldrazi Spirits. The deck is basically UW Death & Taxes but with Thought-Knot Seer and Eldrazi Displacer thrown in, giving the deck two more powerful creatures and a form of inevitability by blinking Thought-Knot Seer over and over again. If you're looking for a new-ish take on Death & Taxes for Modern, this is probably the place to start!

Most Played Cards

Apart from the Humans cluttering up the bottom half of the list, the biggest takeaway from the most played cards at Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan is how it looks almost exactly the broader Modern metagame . The black discard moved up a bit, and  Path to Exile moved down a couple of slots, but for the most part, the Pro Tour metagame was exactly the same as the Magic Online / SCG metagame that we've had over the past few months. This is a testament to just how great a format Modern is at the moment. Over 400 pros spent thousands of hours trying to break the format, only to end up playing Modern just like the rest of us, with a bunch of good but not great decks and mass disagreement over which deck was best for the event. Modern is awesome, and based on these results, hopefully Wizards takes a very light touch (and perhaps no touch at all) with the banned-and-restricted announcement next week. 

So, how did Rivals of Ixalan do at its namesake Pro Tour? The short answer is that it didn't do anything at all. Discounting Negate , which isn't really a Rivals of Ixalan card, since it's reprinted in just about every set, the only Rivals of Ixalan cards to show up were Dire Fleet Daredevil in the sideboard of some Humans builds and a couple of Blood Sun s in our single GR Tron player's sideboard. While in general the return of Modern to the Pro Tour stage seems to have been a huge success, with strong viewership numbers and diverse and exciting gameplay, if there's one downside, it's that Modern isn't really a great format for showcasing Magic 's newest sets. Hopefully, Wizards figures out a way around this problem or perhaps decides that the benefits outweigh the cost because from the perspective of someone watching the event at home, Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan was one of the best Pro Tours we've had in the past couple of years.

Anyway, that's all for today. What did you think of the Modern Pro Tour? Should Modern stick around as a Pro Tour format? What are you excited to play in Modern moving forward based on this weekend's results? Let me know in the comments! As always, leave your thoughts, ideas, opinions, and suggestions, and you can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive or at [email protected].

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MTG Arena Announcements – April 22, 2024

In this edition:

Outlaws of Thunder Junction on MTG Arena

Bonny pall standard festival april 23–30, pro tour thunder junction this weekend in seattle, event schedule.

The latest set is out—have you logged in to get your three Outlaws of Thunder Junction packs? Check your player inbox!

There's a lot happening with the new set, so don't miss these events:

• Ten new packets were recently added to Jump In!
• This is the last week for the Best-of-Three Outlaws of Thunder Junction Sealed event. It ends April 29, so don't miss it!
• The Outlaws of Thunder Junction Quick Draft event begins this Friday, April 26. Earn gems, packs, and build your season ranking.

Pick up new Outlaws of Thunder Junction phrases to use during matches, plus bundles of full-art landscape lands, stickers, and loads more from the MTG Arena Store !

There's even more to come, so don't let your mount go barn sour—saddle up and strike out into the new frontier!

Bring your Standard deck to this festival event for an opportunity to win card styles! Take new cards from Outlaws of Thunder Junction out for a spin, experiment with new deck builds, and do it with a little help from Bonny Pall!

Players start with the Bonny Pall, Clearcutter-inspired emblem with the text, "Whenever you attack, draw a card, then you may put a land card from your hand or graveyard onto the battlefield."

Festival: Bonny Pall Standard Event Details

• Dates : April 23, 8 a.m. – April 30, 8 a.m. PT (UTC-07:00)
• Format : Standard with Bonny Pall emblem
• Entry : 2,500 gold or 500 gems
• Structure : Play as much as you want until the event ends.

The Pro Tour returns to the Emerald City when Pro Tour Thunder Junction kicks off in Seattle, Washington, this Friday, April 26 with a trophy and $500,000 in prizes. There's history under that Space Needle, and you can take a nostalgic trip back in Magic time with Meghan Wolff's article, Settle in for Seattle Tales .

Also, Frank Karsten is back with his Metagame Mentor guide to the top decks and more that'll carry you into the big event with analysis of the metagame now that Outlaws of Thunder Junction has arrived.

You can watch Pro Tour Thunder Junction streaming online at twitch.tv/magic —for complete schedule and details, check out the Pro Tour Thunder Junction viewers guide .

Events open at 8 a.m. PT on their starting dates (excluding Midweek Magic ) and close to entries at 8 a.m. PT (UTC-07:00) on the ending date shown unless otherwise noted.

Midweek Magic

Midweek Magic events open on Tuesdays at 2 p.m. PT and close to new entries on Thursdays at 2 p.m. PT (UTC-07:00).

• April 23–25: Outlaws of Thunder Junction Constructed
• April 30–May 2: On the Edge
• May 7–9: Into the Future
• May 14–16: Brawl Builder Challenge

Quick Draft

• April 9–26: The Lost Caverns of Ixalan
• April 26–May 7: Outlaws of Thunder Junction

Other Events

• April 23–30: Festival: Bonny Pall Standard
• April 30–May 7: Festival: The Big Score Preconstructed Decks

May Qualifier Events – Outlaws of Thunder Junction Limited

• May 4: Best-of-One Play-In
• May 10: Best-of-Three Play-In
• May 11–12: Qualifier Weekend

Competitive Play Schedule

All times listed are Pacific time (UTC-07:00).

Premier Play

Qualifier Play-In events are single-day tournaments in which players compete to earn invitations to that month's Qualifier Weekend events.

Qualifier Weekend events are two-day events in which eligible players compete for invitations to upcoming Arena Championship events.

Qualifier tokens are delivered to your MTG Arena inbox. Remember to claim them before the event starts!

• Qualifier Play-In (Best-of-One) May 4, 6 a.m. PT
• Format: Outlaws of Thunder Junction Limited
• Qualifier Play-In (Best-of-Three) May 10, 6 a.m. PT–May 11, 3 a.m. PT
• Qualifier Weekend May 11, 6 a.m. PT–May 12, 4 p.m. PT

The Arena Open Day One entry window begins at 6 a.m. PT and closes to new entries the following day at 3 a.m. PT (UTC-07:00). The Day Two entry window is 2 hours only, from 6 a.m. PT until 8 a.m. PT (UTC-07:00).

• May 4: Day One, Outlaws of Thunder Junction Sealed (Best-of-One and Best-of-Three)
• May 5: Day Two, Outlaws of Thunder Junction Draft (Best-of-Three)

April 2024 Ranked Season

The April 2024 Ranked Season begins March 31 at 12:05 p.m. PT (UTC-08:00) and ends April 30 at 12 p.m. PT (UTC-07:00).

• Bronze Reward: 1 Outlaws of Thunder Junction pack
• Silver Reward: 1 Outlaws of Thunder Junction pack + 500 gold
• Gold Reward: 2 Outlaws of Thunder Junction packs + 1,000 gold + Binding Negotiation card style
• Platinum Reward: 3 Outlaws of Thunder Junction packs + 1,000 gold + Binding Negotiation card style + Aven Interrupter card style
• Diamond Reward: 4 Outlaws of Thunder Junction packs + 1,000 gold + Binding Negotiation card style + Aven Interrupter card style
• Mythic Reward: 5 Outlaws of Thunder Junction packs + 1,000 gold + Binding Negotiation card style + Aven Interrupter card style

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Keep up with the latest MTG Arena news and announcements on:

• Twitter @MTG_Arena
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